Immutability
by Ebony Starstorm
Summary: Study on Tarsus IV, James T Kirk and the fact that the more you change? The more stays the same.


Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. Finally got around to cross-posting this here. xD

Posted elsewhere under the pen-name 'Starstorm'

Immutability

There are as many universes as there are stars in the sky... or perhaps a few more. Infinite worlds, infinite possibilities. Yet, somehow, one thing remains constant in them all.

There is always a Tarsus IV.

Oh, sometimes it happens earlier, or later, and a lot of the time the name and players vary, but in the end, there will always be ecological disasters, and it is the nature of some beings to take advantage of that fact. No matter what the cost, or what they stand to lose, all they ever see in the wilting crops and the smell of death is a tarnished crown for them to wear.

There isn't always a hero to stop them. Sometimes, a depressingly large amount of the time, the bad guys win. The world ends, for those unfortunates who live there, never with a bang. Just with a whimper.

The worlds are inscribed in the history books, those that the authorities ever find out about, and the universe moves on. The scars for the survivors never really fade, of course, but as far as the rest of life is concerned, it rarely happened at all.

That's what makes Tarsus IV special. In the universes where the disaster happened _there_ and _then_ , everybody knows about it. After all, Starfleet has always had a great many enemies, and they never fail to try to use this failure against them. They never, of course, admit to their own versions, but they always have them.

Sometimes, even on those worlds, there is no one left to save them. Not all the players are always there, you see. And even heroes can fall.

The universes where Kirk dies young, or worse, never existed long beyond their own conception, tend to be dark ones. Without his peculiar brand of luck, (and officially psi-null or not, there was always something supernatural about that), worlds that were saved never are. People that existed in other universes never do, and so there is nobody left to plug the gaps left in the fabric of their own history.

Not, of course, that any of them are ever aware that there *are* gaps in their history. After all, the people who never existed, never joined anything bigger than themselves, or worse, without an example to look up to _just gave up_ never did, for them.

In those universes, the 1701 is usually the last Enterprise. Whoever ends up replacing Pike never returns from their five year mission, or the ship itself blinks out of existence. After all, reality and Enterprises have always had a wary relationship. Maybe the shattered hulks are found, maybe they never are. Either way, the name doesn't ever really mean that much.

Oh, there are those that try, and even a few that arrive back in time to see V'ger, or the whale probe, or any number of other disasters that other versions prevented and are powerless to stop them. Anyone visiting those universes, and it happens on occasion, usually return knowing how lucky they really are.

Because Tarsus is the melting pot. There are others, yes, but not always in time. Any Kirk that survives, whatever their gender, name, or even species, is unique. But without Tarsus? Very few of them ever live up to their full potential. They're still heroes, in small ways. You never really burn the 'saving people' thing out of a Kirk, after all. But without examples of how to save, the knowledge of what happens when they fail and, most importantly, how to face their own death? They freeze at the wrong time, say the wrong thing, go left instead of right. And that is enough to doom them into repeating their own mistakes.

Oh, Kirk, or whoever he/she/they are in the universe they inhabit is known. Even just as a medical footnote, or a line about 'died protecting someone'. Some things, after all, are immutable.

Those that join Starfleet, or the Klingon High Command, or whatever the alternative is for their own species, don't always become captains and commanders, of course. There is, after all, so much to fascinate someone in any walk of life.

Some are astrophysicists, xenobiologists, xenolinguists, engineers, doctors, scientists. Very rarely are they politicians or diplomats, however. Some things just translate poorly onto the map the multiverse has lain out for them. Sometimes, they even meet themselves and are shocked anew by the diversity written into their own genetic code.

Some of them look the same, from universes that only fractured slightly, an ideology, a birthdate, a love. Those are the ones most easily reached by others somewhere along the same 'path'. Others are reachable too, of course, but once breached, they are very rarely returnable to.

Very few, even those interdimensional travellers, ever realise that there is *always* a Kirk. Somewhere, bearing any name and species imaginable. There are only so many gaps the universe can plug. But then, if the 'Kirk' of a specific species had died, they are never replaced into the same one. Universes get darker, even as small worlds can get much brighter.

Somewhere, Q is laughing about that. But then, in a few universes 'Kirk' _is_ a Q, or at least partially. For some reason, Q tends to stop laughing about then, after all, they're no longer somebody else's problem.

He could be a Vulcan, a Romulan, a Tellarite, (though not often the latter, the temperament is unsuited for it). She could be a Betazoid, an Orion, a Trill. Sometimes they're born in the Alpha Quadrant, sometimes they aren't. At least once, the Borg have given up their attempted assimilation of a frail-looking species in the Delta Quadrant almost entirely because of the stubbornness of one of the 'Kirks'. At least once, the Gorn took over the universe.

Too many times, the Klingons win. Though sometimes, that is for the best, after all. They never see the proof of Human honour, and so never know that there's anything really worth saving about them, or at least, not until much later... and by then? It's often far too late to do much beyond opening the communication channels to a race that never quite forgives them for what they've done.

The Romulans, too, win, though often the victory is less long lasting, and almost never quite as sweet. They never forget, after all, that no matter what the Vulcans are to them, they are still a part of the same race, and so they try to reabsorb them. But a race, even one like the Vulcans, can never gain the sort of power they have without being far more dangerous than they appear. In those universes, often, they end up destroying each other entirely. Though others mourn the races they once were, they rarely mourn for what they have become.

But, of course, the majority _are_ Human. If only by default, there's something about the personality that most fits Humans and Klingons, after all. And those that survive are usually Starfleet officers, of any colour or stripe. They, too, approach being who and what they are in unique ways. Maybe a lowly engineering lieutenant will jury-rig the engines to give them a burst of speed when they most need it. Maybe a science ensign will spend their lives making friends with the flora or fauna of their local region. No matter what they do with their lives, the important part is, often, that they are there at all.

Because where they are, their luck inevitably follows and it is often the luck itself that saves the day. Often they _are_ Captains, of course, and whichever ship they captain always ends up being ridiculously famous. It's not always Enterprise. Sometimes, the man that saves half the crew of the Farragut ends up captaining it in the end. Other times it's the Potemkin, or the Kongo, or various ships nobody had ever heard of before they came along to lead them into glory. Everybody hears of them afterwards, for however long Earth, Starfleet and the Federation lasts.

No, they don't always end up saving the Earth. Even that amount of luck can only stretch so far, after all. They usually survive whatever it is that destroys it, of course, but they can never really outrun the guilt, the 'if-onlies' that follow every incarnation of themselves in one way or another. If only I hadn't done what I did, if only I'd made time for my child (Either gender, and a huge variety of names, but rarely ever really _there_ for them, always busy saving people...), even if only I had never fed that Tribble.

Friendships change, too. Those without Spock always feel like they're missing a part of themselves. Those without Bones are always more lonely, and those without Scotty have less laughter lines. Less to amuse themselves when the darkness, inevitably, becomes too much for even a hero to bear. They never really manage to vocalise the loss, of course. They feel it though, and they always will. Those that see an alternate version, happy and relaxed with the friends they have, go back less fulfilled. In so many they inevitably search them out, just to find that _they_ aren't the same people either. They usually end up walking away.

Kodos always dies. Either on Tarsus itself, or later on. But then, everybody dies in the end, and sometimes those deaths are only from old age.

As said, sometimes the bad guys win, and you don't have to win the battle to win the war. To outlive the victims you created, grow old enough that you're no longer haunted by the screams. If you ever were, and some of them weren't.

Sometimes Starfleet saves the day, sometimes the Klingons do. Sometimes nobody does, and the survivors are left to limp away, to flee however they can. Rarely, in that case, do they ever look back.

There is never another colony on the planet. The rumours of ghosts and the overwhelming stench of fear and death are scorched into their very soil. Sometimes it's left as a warning, sometimes as a museum. Often, too often, merely as a grave, the dead buried all together until there is no longer any way to tell where each body ends and the next begins. The turf grows over the humps and hollows of bones spread over open ground, of course, but that doesn't stop people knowing that they're there.

Sometimes people set it all alight, if the dead can't find peace in life, maybe they can in death, and fire is cathartic after all. It burns quickly, briefly a new star before fading out entirely. Occasionally a Q catches wind of this plan, and so it burns forever. After all even Q, especially Junior, know what it means to people. Knows what people have lost in that place, echoing through worlds.

Colonies rise and fall, thrive and fail. But some things are written into history long before they ever happen. Some things are inevitable and immutable. Things change, places, times, people. But the disasters and the greed of those in charge (more often male, for some reason, but not always) never do. The scars never fade, but sometimes those who live through it wear them proudly.

Sometimes there are lists. Lists of those judged worthy and unworthy. The heroes are both, or neither and it never seems to hold any real pattern. As children, they're often deemed unnecessary, after all, in the mind of a Kodos, people can always have more children after the crisis is over. If it ever is, if they don't look at the pain and the chaos they create and decide that they want to keep it. Sometimes they manufacture a new crisis, then another and another, anything to feel that they're needed too much to ever really leave.

Sometimes the people let them, but never underestimate the grief of a parent. Even if their children are dead, if it's by someone else's hand or on someone else's order, that person must look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. Because grieving parents will always have their revenge, no matter how long it takes for that to happen. Child-killers, too, even without the parent that would make the last moments of their life painful, never really escape that label. Nobody can hide forever and the stain of their deeds always leeches through in time.

As said, there is always a Tarsus, always a tragedy. The only difference is in how you deal with it.


End file.
